The Hull and White Model of the Short Rate: An Alternative Analytical Representation

Hull and White extend Ho and Lee's no‐arbitrage model of the short interest rate to include mean reversion. This addition eliminates the problem of negative interest rates and has found wide application. To implement their model, Hull and White employ a sequential search process to identify the mean interest rate in a trinomial lattice at each date. In this article we extend Hull and White's work by developing an analytical solution for the mean interest rate at each date. This solution applies equally well to trinomial lattices, interest rate trees, and Monte Carlo simulation. We illustrate the analytical result by applying it to an example originally used by Hull and White and then for valuing an option on a bond.     

The Role of Workplace Chaplains in Industrial Relations: Evidence from Australia

This paper examines a neglected and largely invisible actor within the field of industrial relations. Taking the case of industrial chaplains in Australian workplaces, it demonstrates that not only do chaplains play an important and independent role in their own right, but that their ostensible neutrality is also used to help achieve the interests of both management and trade unions. The location of chaplains in industrial relations and their need to develop workplace legitimacy accounts for this finding. This suggests that future studies that seek to explore the purpose and activities of new and non‐traditional groups in industrial relations will need to place their analyses within the context of more established actors.     

Trade Union Mergers in British and Australian Television Broadcasting

A complex set of forces facing trade union organizations has meant that union restructuring vis-à-vis merger activity has been a prominent feature of many Western labour movements in the 1980s and 1990s. This paper is located in these structural developments, and its main contribution lies in the insights provided by an in-depth examination of recent union merger activity in commercial television in the UK and Australia. In contrast to the work of Undy et al . (1981), the results suggest that union mergers are influenced by more than changes in membership patterns, and that the delineation of merger categories may be far more complex than what has previously been identified by their model. It is argued, too, that the nature of the forces and the processes that led to the broadcasting union mergers in the UK and Australia were significantly influenced by the different institutional contexts of both countries. Finally, and related to this, it would appear that union merger outcomes (at least in the short term) are linked to the preceding processes by which merger is brought about. One policy implication of this is that anything other than a case-by-case evaluation of union mergers may be misleading.     

Large UK Companies and Derivatives

Derivative securities have transformed the way treasurers view financial price risk and have been used to hedge risks that were previously left open. In this paper, we present the results of surveys of treasurers of large UK companies to questions about their derivative use. We examine the extent of derivative use, the reasons for their use, the perceived risks associated with derivatives, what sort of controls are in place to monitor the use of derivatives, and, finally, reporting practices which govern the disclosure of derivative practices. Results of the surveys indicate widespread use of derivatives like swaps, forwards and options. The primary reasons for their use are to manage interest rate and currency risk. There is a rather limited, but growing, use of derivatives to manage commodity and equity risk. Treasurers report that they are somewhat cautious about more exotic types of derivatives, primarily because of concern over the illiquidity of the underlying market for these derivatives. Interestingly, treasurers revealed that they view control and the nature of their counterparty as the main risks in using derivatives. Finally, the use of derivatives is accompanied by significant control mechanisms inside companies, and treasurers are using sophisticated procedures to quantify their derivative exposures before they are reported at board level.     

New entry,strategic diversity and efficiency in soccer betting markets: the creation and suppression of arbitrage opportunities

ABSTRACT

We find that prices offered by competing bookmakers within the same quote-driven soccer (football) betting market provide arbitrage opportunities. However, the management practices of bookmakers prevent informed bettors exploiting these in practice. We identify two groups of bookmakers, ‘position-takers’ and ‘book-balancers’. Position-takers alter their odds infrequently, while actively restricting informed traders. Book-balancers actively manage inventory by adjusting odds, and place few restrictions on their customers. We identify 545 arbitrage portfolios, and find that around 50% would require a bet on the favourite at the position-taking bookmaker. The management practices of position-takers generally prevent these opportunities being exploited in practice.     

Work, organisation and Enterprise Resource Planning systems: an alternative research agenda

This paper reviews literature that examines the design, implementation and use of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs). It finds that most of this literature is managerialist in orientation, and concerned with the impact of ERPs in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business performance. The paper seeks to provide an alternative research agenda, one that emphasises work- and organisation-based approaches to the study of the implementation and use of ERPs.     

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION AND PRIORITY STRATEGIES IN DANISH ORGANIZATIONS

There has been little discussion on how to prioritize and implement SCM strategies within organizations. This paper presents a decision tool to identify prioritized strategies for improving SCM implementation and validates its use in a study amongst SCM managers of 100 Danish organizations.     

Searching for the Downsian Voter with a Simple Structural Model

Studies of voter turnout consistently find that turnout responds to the closeness of the election, yet it is widely claimed that the probability of casting the deciding vote is too minute to be of consequence. We provide evidence on this puzzle by deriving a structural rational voting model in the form of a relatively simple regression equation, and fitting it to data from a large sample of US congressional elections.     

A Strategic Choice–resource Dependence Analysis of Union Mergers in the British and Australian Broadcasting and Film Industries

Since the late 1980s there has been a marked increase in the rate of union restructuring and merger in both Britain and Australia. This has been particularly prevalent in the film and broadcasting industries in both countries. This organizational change has largely been triggered by environmental turbulence which has altered the availability and control of resources required for organizational survival. Accepting the concept from strategic choice theory that trade unions are able to exercise a degree of choice over the way in which they manage and adapt to changes in their external and internal environments, the paper demonstrates how an integration of strategic choice and resource dependence perspectives can explain why organizations behave in different ways and, in particular, why trade union mergers in the film and broadcasting industries have occurred. Further, the perspective also explains why some trade unions chose not to merge. An integration of resource dependence theory with strategic choice theory explains why trade unions make particular strategic decisions. Conversely, strategic choice explains how organizations acquire resources and manage dependencies. The paper concludes by making the case for an integration of the two perspectives for future studies of organizational behaviour and change.